Literary Lesbians

Book group this month was a pretty quiet affair.  Sam, Ange, Sonya, Marg and Jude had dinner at The Tenth Muse in Fitzroy.  We tried to talk about the book, but conversation soon turned to more interesting topics!

First important discovery was that not all editions of the book had the extracts from the ancient text in red print.  Some of the book group members’ copies were all black print, which made it quite confusing to distinguish between the ancient text and the modern story.

Sonya thought the lesbian content was negligible and not very good.  She was hoping for some sex scenes, but although the book gave quite detailed descriptions of the heterosexual sex scenes, the lesbian sex was brushed over.

Ange was picturing Han as a gorgeous Lucy Liu type character.  Sonya thought that she was an unlikable character.  She thought that she could have been developed more like Estella in Great Expectations, who was beautiful and mean but still attractive.  Han was cold, hard, and out for herself, messed up, a tease.  Sonya was not convinced by her transition at the end.

Sonya didn’t like the moral of the story: that they had to fall in love for the purpose of parting.  Ange agreed, “I got all the way through the book, for this?!”  Marg admitted to not even finishing the book, although she did like the fact that it was a bit different to usual.

We didn’t agree that the book read like a thriller (as it said on the cover).

Sam wondered whether Boy Meets Girl (an earlier book group book) would have been improved by writing the story in the style of this book.

We hoped that future books were going to be a bit better.

Conversation drifted off to AfterEllen, Biggest Loser, MadMen, dogs, etc. etc.